Richard Burns drove his Subaru-Pirelli to the 2001
World Rally Drivers’ Championship after finishing 3rd on the Rally
GB that finished in Cardiff this afternoon. It is the 30-year old
Englishman’s first World Crown while it marks the 18th
World Crown for Pirelli, five of which have come from its
technical partnership with Subaru, started in 1994.

Three Pirelli drivers – including Ford-Pirelli’s Colin
McRae and Carlos Sainz – began this final round of the
World Championship with a chance of the Title. McRae crashed
out of the event while leading and Sainz was withdrawn from
fourth place, handing the Manufacturers’ Championship toPeugeot. With Tommi Makinen (the only other possible
champion) retiring on the opening day, Burns has been able to
cruise to the title and he has not been called upon to show just
how fast he can drive in the slippery Welsh forests.

Pirelli Motorsport Director, Paul Hembery, said
today: ‘Naturally we are delighted to have helped Richard become
the first English World Rally Champion on his home event.
The fact that Pirelli started this rally with three possibleWorld Champions underlines the consistent performance
of the PZero tire range this season on all surfaces and in
all conditions.’

Attention now turns to the 2002 WRC season that starts in
less than eight weeks’ time with testing getting underway for bothMonte Carlo and Sweden immediately after this event.Subaru-Pirelli’s line-up for the season will include
new-signing 4 times world champion Tommi Makinen along withPetter Solberg, while Markko Martin moves fromSubaru to the Ford-Pirelli team to join Colin
McRae and Sainz.